I need to make a quick run to the store which is just over the hill from my home. Going up the hill, the homes get progressively larger, a little more custom, and just where the main street crests, a side street winds up even further to the “view lots”. These homes, perched on a couple of acres of scrubby So. Cal hillside, have beautiful, professionally designed front landscraping — boulders, queen palms, daylillies, agapanthus and, of course, some strips of lush green grass. Hired gardeners are ubiquitous in these neighborhoods, the pickup trucks filled with mowers, edgers, blowers and 2-3 guys flit from home to home in practiced, efficient motions. Mow-n-go.
Sitting at the signal at the top of the hill, I glance up at the first home just up the sidestreet, noting a lawnmower already in action.
Then I take a second look.
The lawnmower is being pushed by a young boy, probably about eleven or twelve years old.
Kudos to the parents.
Comment by SteveG on 8/2 @ 9:30 am #
I agree.
Kids need to learn how to work.
Otherwise it breeds an attitude of entitlement and separates them from reality.
My work niche lately has been working in the custom mansion end of construction, so I have come to know kids that have never swept, raked, clean their own bathroom or done their own laundry. The maids clean and put clothes away and the gardeners do everything outside.
At the risk of hijacking your thread, I’d point out that most of these maids, gardeners are hardworking honest people…other than they are here illegally and are working under the table for cash and personal check. Having the 12 year old son do the lawn ad the kids pick up their own rooms seems trivial, but it is not
Comment by Darleen on 8/2 @ 9:41 am #
SteveG
Actually that is the main point of this thread. I think parents today have a much harder time “parenting” because they believe they must protect their children from any uncomfortableness. Chores are not always comfortable, and a kid is going to whine and fuss being taken away from the videogame or text-messaging.
Hint to parents out there? There should be NO tech media in your kids’ room, save for a radio/cd player. No ‘puter, games, tv, etc.
Trust me.
Comment by Dave E. on 8/2 @ 10:10 am #
I used to pay a neighborhood kid to cut the grass, but the young lad had the nerve to grow up and get a real job. I don’t mind doing it myself, but I think that kind of work is important for youngsters and I’m willing to support it. Unfortunately, that type of teenager is apparently extinct in my neighborhood. The young man who used to do it tried to recruit a replacement and had no luck. It wasn’t a matter of money, it was that the other kids:
-Didn’t want to.
-Already got all the money they needed from their parents.
-Their parents wouldn’t let them operate a lawnmower…too dangerous!
As someone who got that chore at age 12, that last one left me gobsmacked. Especially considering how much safer mowers are today.
Comment by happyfeet on 8/2 @ 10:15 am #
I think really this is a good idea for adult people too.
Comment by happyfeet on 8/2 @ 10:15 am #
oh… about where to put tech media…
Comment by SteveG on 8/2 @ 10:21 am #
I had to answer the door…
Anyway, the underground economy is ubiquitous in upper income areas. Particularly in the services dominated by illegals like cleaning, gardening. Under Obama type tax programs and by Obama proposed levies and responsibilities placed on legitimate businesses (who may have illegals on staff thaat are using forged docs, but aat least they’ll be paying their way).
I predict the underground economy will explode under Obama which will fray the fabric of society further.
Socialist and marxist central government dominated economies always have huge underground black market economies that become so dysfunctional that they are hard to repair. The exception seems to be in China where the docile industriousness of the people combined with an entrepreneurial ruling class has paid off so far in the short term.
Returning to the underground economy and illegals, I’d like to see more done there by ICE and the IRS.
People remodeling their 10M mansion do not need to pay illegals under the table to get by.
$100,000’s if not millions are paid out in cash or cash equivalents over the course of these jobs.
Checks written individual illegals are cash weekly at multiple check cashing bodegas and distributed $10 per hour cash to the rest.
It’s money laundering, tax evasion.
Irritatingly enough other under the table skilled labor is usually gringos on disability, unemployment, etc. They work for cash. Most of them are Obama people. All for bigger government programs and benefits for obvious reasons.
So if anyone out there knows any IRS leadership, ask ‘em what’s up for me OK?
Comment by Sdferr on 8/2 @ 10:25 am #
Underground economies tend to work just fine, thank you. It’s the overdetermined overregulated statist economies that get into trouble.
Comment by SarahW on 8/2 @ 10:37 am #
I used to do all my own lawn work. I got tired of cuts, bruises, little bits of green stuff in my hair and eyes, and and contact dermatitis. Plus now it looks way better.
Comment by Ric Locke on 8/2 @ 10:43 am #
Sdferr has the correct observation. Ric’s Rule #2: Markets happen anyway.
When you have a “regulated market”, especially in the case of trying to suppress a market (prohibitions, price controls, etc.) what you get is two markets: an underground or “black” market that trades the goods in question with a premium attached according to the personal risk(s) the traders take, and an unaccountable, almost totally opaque market in the attention and favor of the bureaucrats doing the “regulating”. The first almost always deals in cash, and is transparent to its participants. The second may deal partially in cash (in which case we call it “corruption”) but also trades in power, prestige, and personal services. The most obvious example at present is drugs.
Part of the problem, as usual, derives from leftoid ideals that are incompatible with one another. They’ll tell you viva voce that some things cannot be valued in money, that intangibles (“self esteem”, e.g.) must override crass cash. At the same time they are anxious to have a price tag appended literally everything down to toenail clippings, so they can tax it efficiently. The tension between the two is a wonderful profit opportunity for the even slightly unscrupulous.
Income taxes, Social Security, construction standards, workplace safety, etc. are all attempts at regulating the market. Illegal immigrants, and growing numbers of native Americans, don’t expect to ever see any real benefit from any of those, so they’re happy to participate in the informal economy or “black market”. The authorities, particularly the IRS, respond by trying to tighten up their control, which ups informal market prices and makes it worthwhile to pay off the bureaucrats. It always happens, and will always happen.
Regards,
Ric
Comment by happyfeet on 8/2 @ 11:05 am #
Underground is nice. A friend of mine here in the Los Angeles, he lost his job so he worked a few months in like 06 as an “independent contractor” … netting maybe 19K … three years later the city sent him a tax bill on an assessed basis of 100K …
In 2007 or so they passed this law that lets the city datamine the state tax records… and they went back and mugged people. So he had to show them his income… with fees and a bogus “account establishment charge” he ended up paying $185 on an assessed tax of $12. I paid this for his birthday, cause he just was hating America at that point.
Los Angeles is made out of hopeychangey cocksuckers seems to be the problem. Next time round, “alternate arrangements” are going to look really very appealing I think to these people that got mugged. If I were entrepreneurially minded I do not think I would exert much energy in the Los Angeles. It is not a place for that I don’t think.
Comment by happyfeet on 8/2 @ 11:16 am #
Also… agapanthus … that’s what those ones are. They’re everywhere but I didn’t know what they were called. I knew a lot of the nursery/landscaping plants in Texas, but no one here knows what any of the plants are when I ask. They seem to think it an odd question really. These agapanthus thingers fit well with xeriscaping is why you see so many.
Comment by happyfeet on 8/2 @ 11:24 am #
I didn’t know you could pot them.
Comment by happyfeet on 8/2 @ 11:25 am #
Well, it says tubs.
Comment by happyfeet on 8/2 @ 11:26 am #
Also I said net when I meant gross.
Comment by BumperStickerist on 8/2 @ 11:30 am #
Once he was strong enough so he could push the mower safely my 12yo boy learned all about mowing lawns, lawn mower safety, and the like. The good ol’ briggs and stratton 5hp non-power-wheeled lawnmower. It’s like a blocking sled they use in football practice, except that it can maim or kill you if you’re not careful.
Comment by banned in colorado on 8/2 @ 11:40 am #
“Irritatingly enough other under the table skilled labor is usually gringos on disability, unemployment, etc. They work for cash. Most of them are Obama people. All for bigger government programs and benefits for obvious reasons.”
Oh, sure, as I am contractor, I know you’re really bullshitting us. It’s true that ’subcontracting’ mostly involuntary is going on. Basically, people do as the ‘boss’ insists on it. I’d like to have my social security taken out, have unemployment etc. like the last job but all that’s available is from g.c.’s avoiding taxes and just giving you the whole amount. Take it or leave it. It saves the ‘boss’ lots of money but he also lets the IRS know that he’s paying ’subcontractors’ even though he is really hiring “employees”. It’s a bait and switch by usually Republican bosses.
and no one does a 100 K+ renovation w/o hiring a ‘boss’. (a GC) But that GC probably is flaunting every law in the book to keep his labor rates low…esp. giving cash payments w/o deductions. (it’s nice for a few monthes until the poor laborer has to pay his social security at 15 percent on top of the 20 percent of other taxes….and he gets Nada for it…not even health care. ) Anyway, just keep spouting that right wing drivel: Obama’s people are all tax cheats. Yeah, they’re all Bosses are they?
Comment by Darleen on 8/2 @ 11:49 am #
It’s a bait and switch by usually Republican bosses.
And you can substantiate that? Link?
yeah, though so.
Comment by Spiny Norman on 8/2 @ 11:52 am #
Would that be Foxborough Drive?
Comment by Topsecretk9 on 8/2 @ 12:12 pm #
I’ve had my son mowing the lawn since he was 8. At 8 it wasn’t perfect, little scraggily on the edge, a few patches that didn’t make it under the blade, but that wasn’t the point. i wasn’t looking for perfection. Now that he’s 13 he does a marvelous fron and back job.
Growing up my brother mowed the lawn. About 2 years ago I was at his home which has a large lawn front and back and I just assumed his 12 and 15 year old able bodied sons mowed it. I was shocked when my brother told me he had a gardener do it, didn’t like the job his sons did. I told him to get a large glass of Ice Tea and a lawn chair and sit out there when they mowed – they’d start doing a good job, trust me.
Nope.
So basically my nephews have learned if they just a half-assed job their mom and dad will just pay to have someone do it right. Unbelievable.
Now my brother is complaining that his his smart alec soon to be senior won’t get a job, gets bad grades and are worried if he’ll get into college and it’s all a big mystery to them why this is.
Comment by Sdferr on 8/2 @ 12:24 pm #
Adults lead best by doing. Want your children to read? Then let them see you reading books. Want your children to play an instrument? Then let them see you playing one and when they play get in there and do it with them.
My mom taught me to smoke, god bless her. Works all kinds of ways that doing stuff does.
While it’s sort of the flip-side of the “behave virtuously so that your children will do the same” argument, still the point ought to be well taken. Look, for instance, at this excerpt of Myron Magnet’s piece at City Journal titled “The Great African-American Awakening”:
—”…In addition to physical abuse, Cosby and Poussaint observe, we’ve all cringed at hearing inner-city mothers abusing kids verbally as well, making them feel worthless and unwanted. “Words like ‘You’re stupid,’ ‘You’re an idiot,’ ‘I’m sorry you were born,’ or ‘You’ll never amount to anything’ can stick a dagger in a child’s heart.†Single mothers angry with men, whether their current boyfriends or their children’s fathers, regularly transfer their rage to their sons, since they’re afraid to take it out on the adult males. “If they hear their mom say, ‘Black men ain’t worth sâ€â€-,’ the boys wonder whether that includes them. When their moms yell, ‘You’re no good, just like your father!’ all the doubt goes away.†When such racially tinged verbal abuse takes the form of “ ‘Nigger, I’ll kick your fâ€â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€ black aâ€â€,’ †the child ends up ashamed of being black, as wellâ€â€a danger anyway in a society where rumors of black inferiority still echo, if more faintly. …”
Comment by happyfeet on 8/2 @ 12:25 pm #
That’s probably why mine is the only balcony with plants, cause of my mom.
Comment by Rusty on 8/2 @ 12:38 pm #
#16
Banned in Colorado for substandard work? Anecdotal evidence does not a trend make. If you had a marketable skill you’d still e busy. Shame,that.
On the plus side a lot of RVs, hotter sports cars, and boats are on the market, cheap.
Comment by Lost My Cookies on 8/2 @ 1:07 pm #
I mow our lawn with a 22” push mower. 22 rows up hill, 23 rows down. It’s good for my health. Mental health. 55 minutes of just me and my ipod.
My 13 year old has been mowing lawns for 2 years now, he’s got an in with a realtor and a a bunch of retired guys in the neighborhood. He makes $40 or $50 a lawn, about $200 a week. He uses my mower, which I bought used for $80, he buys the gas and if I’m out of town he mows ours. My 10 year old mows my back yard and sometimes does the trimming for my 13 year old. If he does, I make sure he gets his cut.
I don’t pay my kids for chores, I take care of their needs. If they want something, they can pay the difference.
And this is actually an interesting post because of a conversation my wife and I were having yesterday. The things my parents did that drove me out of my mind are the things I’m most glad they did. (Not “superglue Sunday” or the trips to “kiss the radiator”, the other things)
Comment by JD on 8/2 @ 2:32 pm #
I was very young when my father started having me now the 1 acre lawn with his huge, incredibly heavy Snapper push mower. I still have that thing, and I still hate it. My John Deere is much more efficient, fun, and like LMC, that is my quiet time, just riding around the yard on my tractor.
Comment by SteveG on 8/2 @ 3:45 pm #
“Oh, sure, as I am contractor, I know you’re really bullshitting us. It’s true that ’subcontracting’ mostly involuntary is going on. Basically, people do as the ‘boss’ insists on it. I’d like to have my social security taken out, have unemployment etc. like the last job but all that’s available is from g.c.’s avoiding taxes and just giving you the whole amount. Take it or leave it. It saves the ‘boss’ lots of money but he also lets the IRS know that he’s paying ’subcontractors’ even though he is really hiring “employeesâ€Â. It’s a bait and switch by usually Republican bosses.
and no one does a 100 K+ renovation w/o hiring a ‘boss’. (a GC) But that GC probably is flaunting every law in the book to keep his labor rates low…esp. giving cash payments w/o deductions. (it’s nice for a few monthes until the poor laborer has to pay his social security at 15 percent on top of the 20 percent of other taxes….and he gets Nada for it…not even health care. ) Anyway, just keep spouting that right wing drivel: Obama’s people are all tax cheats. Yeah, they’re all Bosses are they?”
Ok you got me.
One way I’ve seen is to be “Owner/Builder”. They then hire an experienced job superintentant who has done multi million projects.
They recruit illegals who have used forged docs to get jobs who have risen to crew chief level of high quality-high end contractors running their crews of illegals doing painting, landscaping, site labor, stone masonry, drywall, plaster.
In order to bypass subcontractor mark up and taxes, SS etc they hire the key employees away from the subcontractors by offering $15 to $20 per hour per employee.
You can get a business license with a drivers license from Oregon or North Carolina as long as you pay the fees and file the paperwork even if you are illegal. The rich guys pay the lead guys who in turn skim off the top and pay their helpers at a cash rate of $10 per hour no deductions, no insurance. A smart illegal landscape/site labor job foreman can make $20hr for himself and then skim $5hr off of 10-12 guys and net $80hr tax free.
Most illegal laborers aren’t so dumb as to declare their cash… and illegal status, by filing a return, so no, they don’t get stuck with the 12.4% SS.
People that launder money on a small scale ($1-10M) per year are always around in the high end real estate renovation market… sure it costs them 15% capital gains, but the savings on payroll tax, workers comp, contractor mark up far outweigh that. Add in appreciation and you’ve got a winner.
These guys do also hire legit subs, but they’ll often steal the crew leaders for their next project.
I turned down several supervisory jobs where this was the general scheme… the actual details of how they moved the money around isn’t something I could determine, but it is out there
Comment by B Moe on 8/2 @ 4:26 pm #
-Their parents wouldn’t let them operate a lawnmower…too dangerous!
As someone who got that chore at age 12, that last one left me gobsmacked.
But four years from now they will give them the keys to the car, because that isn’t dangerous at all.
I’d like to have my social security taken out, have unemployment etc. like the last job but all that’s available is from g.c.’s avoiding taxes and just giving you the whole amount. Take it or leave it. It saves the ‘boss’ lots of money but he also lets the IRS know that he’s paying ’subcontractors’ even though he is really hiring “employeesâ€Â. It’s a bait and switch by usually Republican bosses.
No dave, it isn’t bait and switch, it is you trying to rationalize being a fucking tax cheat. If you would like to have your taxes and social security taken out, then do it yourself, but don’t blame you not paying taxes on your boss.
You are a thief, face it.
Comment by Challeron on 8/2 @ 4:52 pm #
Okay, I prolly shouldn’t jump in here quite this way, but (back when I had a job, and more money than I knew what to do with) I bought a Walker mower to handle my 1-acre lot (yeah, I know, it’s a commercial-grade mower, but I don’t mow often and I like to be able to mow my whole lot in an hour even though the grass be knee-high), and it’s nice to know that if I remain unemployed long enough, I might yet be able to get myself a used pickup truck and trailer and go into the lawn-mowing business myself.
Not that I’d planned for that “opportunity” when I bought the damned thing, of course (it cost $10,000) … but, hey: When life gives you lemons….
(God I hope I did the code right; where’s Preview when you really need it?…)
Comment by Challeron on 8/2 @ 4:54 pm #
Nope; didn’t work. I don’t know how the “proteinwisdom.com” thing got stuck in there….
Can I try this again?…
Comment by SteveG on 8/2 @ 5:14 pm #
My point on the tax cheat angle was that if you vote for a guy who wants to raise taxes to provide more benefits, then at least have the decency to participate in the system to the fullest.
Darleen was telling us a story about a kid learning to participate in our economy productively from the bottom up even though the kid seemed to be in a privileged situation.
Not only does it teach a kid to work hard and to value the fruits of that labor, it also reduces the reliance on others to do tasks. Those others (gardeners in southern california that do the mow blow and go super cheap) tend to be illegals who are self employed 100% off the books. They pay rent and sales taxes, but otherwise are tax evaders.
I’ve heard a few people call for us to deport the criminals first. We should also deport the tax evaders. Living off the fat of the land even if you otherwise work hard and honest is wrong. At least get into the system and pay your share.
Hopefully Darleen’s story will have a happy ending, and the kid won’t grow up to be one of America’s able bodied Obama supporters who is milking unemployment because they have too much “self esteem” to mow a lawn
Comment by banned in colorado on 8/2 @ 5:26 pm #
Hey, SteveG. You at least seem to know about the semi-legal skirting of IRS rules about who is an employee and who is s subcontractor. I’d been trying to explain what’s going down in general here for awhile. Being a carpenter and mini-contractor for a long whiles off and on, you’re verifying what’s going on in Utah, Vermont, Chicago and NYC, all environs I’ve been associated with. In Vermont it’s still pretty much a native (white guy) tradesman scene, but just being in Utah with all the polyvinyl, stucco subdivisions going up, I see a lot of ‘wetbacks’ doing the heavy lifting. Your picture matches what I am seeing on those Ivory home sites. (just pissing the locals here off by saying ‘wetbacks’ but my Bro -in-law is Mexican American and he’s doing great working for the fed. govt and wouldn’t care what I call the illegals. habla espanol? )
You’re of course right, the Mexicans mean well and are hardworking as are all the others coming to our shores (mostly_). Then I check out the people attending to my dad in the assisting living out in Utah. Lucky guy, good looking chicas taking care of him from all over, Peru, Panama, Phillipines…and that’s just the P’s. They do probably get benefits and have legal status but wages and hours are minus and plus in that order. The Peruvian said it best: “It’s all work here in the USA.” She didn’t seem totally happy about that. A friend here in VT is also Peruvian and he bemoans the lack of a party atmosphere here in Amerika…(k is just to highlight the Prussian aspect of our economy.) I am just challenging the status quo religion that free markets and lack of regulation are the way to go. What about the law? Mostly conservative businessmen seem to think it’s okay to ignore IRS definitions of employee and subcontractor.
In Chicago, my former inlaws are top architects there, $150 an hour types, but they still use Polish subcontractors on their million dollar upgrades and such. They do a little GC work on the side or ‘own’ the GC’s. A lot of guys doing the work don’t even speak English. And just walk down a street in NYC on a work site and try find English spoken. Not a problem…but the GC’s cheating on every employment law and the govt. just ignoring it is a bigger problem than illegal immigration IMO.
Personally, I am working for a laizzie faire type of guy, no employment taxes and all his clients are Republican, they don’t care if i have insurance or not and don’t want to know if he’s covering his employees. They just want cheap rates and do my thing without supervision because he’s quality isn’t up to mine and I set my own hours w/o him breathing down my neck. That’s the only reasons I stay on as he promised to be legit and then backed out and failed to deduct the taxes so I am stuck with double the Social security taxes and have the pay the whole nearly 15 per cent ’self employment’ tax even though I get the same wage as I was getting with my former Democrat contractor who paid all his taxes on time and was totally legit …but also had mental and temper issues. (sorry, forgot how to spell Lazy Faire….but on the other hand my present ‘boss’ is the laziest contractor I ever worked for and one of his best friends worked for Fox News…and they do the same thing: ‘free agency’ and no benefits… but then that guy’s a trustfunder.
It’s not just in construction or services it’s Federal Express violating the IRS rules and fleecing their subcontractors of security and benefits and forcing them pay full freight of social security.
Anyway, a lightning storm blew out my last more cogent post on this. I appreciate real world reporting from the work place…something I don’t see here too often. (eh, JD? you work?)
Best of luck in our competitive workplaces.
Comment by banned in colorado on 8/2 @ 5:48 pm #
Darleen, I am talking about my own boss. I signed the IRS papers and he didn’t send them in. He’s a Liar, but then again I need the work. Tell me ol high minded ones how pure and airy fairy thou art? You voted for a trustfund guy who could only make money by stealing the land from hardworking folk to build a texas ranger’s stadium with Dad’s friend’s money. No work there. Just privilege.
sorry, SteveG. You seem to be a bit pius about playing by the rules but ignored the fact that the rules are stacked against people who work for less than 20 bucks an hour. Tell me now next that they should pay their own Health Insurance next and LOL. (Oh, I imagine one will sanctimoniously say if they paid their health insurance all our rates will go down…yeah, they should suffer so you might get at most a decrease in growth of health care premiums… with that naivety then let me sell you some annuities from First Prudential…….)
oh, well, do the lot of you drive at 55 mph in unison across the lanes?
Comment by banned in colorado on 8/2 @ 5:54 pm #
dude, awesome. Challeron
anywhere near CNY? my mate has 2 and half acres of grass… and the ol’ john deere is getting pathetic.
Comment by Challeron on 8/2 @ 7:03 pm #
Naw, dave, I’m in northern Illinois (Lake County), a former Chicagoan who got tired of the Democratic Machine and its taxes.
Btw, I know you’re mostly blowing smoke to get a rise out of people here, but: Have you considered that maybe one of the reasons all those “illegals” do all of the “heavy lifting” is because they’re not afraid to do the Heavy Lifting? Most of Darleen’s post(s) is about the fact that American Kids — taught by the Public School System that “You’re Someone Special!!” — tend to look upon Physical Labor as being Beneath Their Dignity; so, where does a Contractor go except to the Illegals?
(And please don’t mention Union Labor, because most Union members aren’t interested in working either: Everybody has seen the “typical
white personroadwaylazy assworker” standing around doing nothing; most of them are members of AFSCME.)Comment by cynn on 8/2 @ 7:27 pm #
Do any of you people even live in working class neighborhood? In the shadow of downtown Denver, middle class, 100+ year old homes, street parking. Chores and summer jobs are de rigeur. We can barely afford handymen, let alone general contractors and granite countertops. And I let my lawn die ’cause it was to f’in hot.
You can marvel all you want that some privileged kid is actually working or sniff about all the illegals and their tax evasion. That’s what you get with a combination of lotsa money and high expectations. The market will follow.
Comment by The Lost Dog on 8/2 @ 7:28 pm #
Hi, Darleen.
I hate to pop this bubble, but when I was that age, I used to beg to cut the lawn. Many kids love to do this.
Even today when I am (murmer, murmer) years old, I still love to cut lawns.
But it is true that what you saw gets rarer and rarer. Everybnody (what’s a “bnody?”) I know hires illegals to cut their lawns (except for me).
I might be simple, but I still love to cut lawns. It’s better than Psilosin.
I hope it was a good “omen”, but at the same time, this kid may have been as twisted as I am…
Comment by JD on 8/2 @ 7:38 pm #
‘wetbacks’ – brought to you by, drumroll … a racist Leftist. SHOCKA
I mow 3x a week, so I can keep the stripes in my lawn looking fresh, plus, it is the only peace and quiet I get at home.
Comment by cynn on 8/2 @ 7:41 pm #
My God, JD, you should open a golf course.
Comment by The Lost Dog on 8/2 @ 7:43 pm #
Hey, Steve G. -
This comment is a total load of horse shit. And you need to be called out on it.
You can’t really be this stupid, can you?
Politics have nothing to do with greed, and you are an absolute moron to suggest that this kind of behaviour is “Republican”. I actually laughed out loud when I read it.
Where ever you were “educated” (if you even were), you should get your money back.
Jaysus! You sound like one of those idiots who blames schizophrenia on global warming.
Comment by Darleen on 8/2 @ 7:50 pm #
TLD
Steve didn’t say that quote… see #16
Comment by The Lost Dog on 8/2 @ 7:55 pm #
JD,
If you like those stripes, see if you can find a Locke mower on E-bay.
They are the most awesome mowers ever made, but they haven’t been in production for years. Probably pretty expensive, but I promise you, the first time you mow your lawn with one, and then look at the yard, you will get a woody up to here!
Believe me! I am a lawn mowing freak, and I have never used a better lawn mower. And where I grew up, we had over five acres of lawn. It would take more than a day to mow it (heaven to me), but when I was done, I would admire it for a long time. A true accomplishment!
Seriously. Check out Locke mowers. Da Best!
Comment by cynn on 8/2 @ 8:00 pm #
Darleen: I think you are applying a sweeping generalization to today’s kids; that they are coddled and don’t understand or appreciate initiative or plain old labor. However, I thought about it a bit and wonder if such laziness might be a function of suburban or exurban life. Really not much to walk to, the better-off people tend to outsource routine household maintenance, internet and a million cable channels tend to substitute for ordinary human interaction.
I have never lived in a suburb, always biking distance from a city core. That just got me to thinking …
Comment by JD on 8/2 @ 8:00 pm #
cynn – I wish I could.
Maybe Senor Locke could help me out with one of those, TLD.
Comment by cynn on 8/2 @ 8:05 pm #
BTW: Mowing is the one thing I won’t let my kid do. She’s run over the damn power cord twice.
Comment by The Lost Dog on 8/2 @ 8:09 pm #
Thanks, Darleen.
I apologize for attributing it to Steve, but I have to let the comment stand. Greedy people have different politics, but they are still greedy. Where I live, there are very few people that think on the “right” side of life.
But almost every contractor I know thought they were getting over by hiring illegals for $12 an hour and charging them out at $50 – $60 an hour. They made a fortune for a while, but as soon as these guys learned the trade (and don’t get me wrong, I like these guys and have much fun with them – I am Loco Tomas to them), they were out bidding at $12 an hour. I used to make between forty and fifty an hour, and am now very lucky to make thirty an hour.
I just don’t see where “Republicans” are responsible for this. Greedy perople are greedy people, and they come in all colors and sizes. I am just a little miffed that, once again, greed is accorded to “Republicans”.
They barely exist here…
Comment by cynn on 8/2 @ 8:16 pm #
TLD, of course Republicans are not responible. Affiliation flies out the window when there’s money involved.
Comment by The Lost Dog on 8/2 @ 8:17 pm #
Oh, and BTW.
When I win Powerball tonight, I am going to buy plane tickets to see each and every person here!
Or maybe buy neverybody tickets to – wherever we decide.
Cross your fingers everyone!
(Don’t take this too seriously. If I did win, we’re on. But I will probably get struck by lightning sixteen times before I even know someone who wins…)
Comment by Darleen on 8/2 @ 8:18 pm #
cynn
what sweeping generalization about kids? I’m giving kudos to the parents who could easily have their lawn done once a week for under $80/month having their kid contributing as a member of the family.
It really isn’t easy for many of today’s parents NOT to be caught up in all the hoopla of making sure their kids are continually entertained and happy.
But happiness doesn’t come from the outside. You don’t impose happiness on someone. Parents need to teach their kids how happiness is a choice and that they themselves are responsible.
Teaching kids how to do a job and find satisfaction in it is part of that teaching.
BTW… I do my own yard work. My 76 y/o mom still does almost all of hers.
Comment by The Lost Dog on 8/2 @ 8:26 pm #
“Maybe Senor Locke could help me out with one of those, TLD”
Well, one more thing. I don’t know about the rest of the country, but here in the Northeast, Locke mowers are still the choice of almost all of the golf courses. And there are a lot of amazing courses around here. The good courses seem to follow the money.
Check it out. I don’t know where you live, but I wouldn’t be all that surprised to find that the better courses near you have Locke mowers.
I’m telling ya, you can draw pictures with them if you have the urge.
I can’t believe that I’m pushing a fucking lawnmower!
Comment by cynn on 8/2 @ 8:26 pm #
Darleen, how do you know it was their kid and not some kidnapped slave? Kidding. I absolutely agree that it is not our job to be recreation directors on the Love Boat. In fact, a little unhappiness and ennui go a long way to forcing some introspection and action. I hope more of the suburban havebots start kicking juvenile booty.
Comment by Darleen on 8/2 @ 8:37 pm #
cynn
my girls learned early on that the worst thing they could say in my presence – “I’m bored.”
Comment by The Lost Dog on 8/2 @ 8:38 pm #
No, no, cynn.
The “slave” thing sounds interesting.
I’ll tell you what. It’s really tough to hit “middle age crazy” at 60.
Very confusing…
Comment by Freedoms Truth on 8/2 @ 9:33 pm #
“my girls learned early on that the worst thing they could say in my presence – “I’m bored.†”
Indeed! My kids know the score. That’s the fastest ticket to a few chores.
Had my 10-year-old son out moving rocks and picking up weeds this am.
Of course, I was out there too, moving dirt and building walls.
We do our yard work.
I think I am building his character. I get the impression he thinks I am
a slavedriving taskmaster. Maybe we are both right. :-)
Comment by The Lost Dog on 8/2 @ 11:03 pm #
FreedomTruth,
It is kind of dizzying that my son knows more about sex at eight than I knew at thirteen. As much as I think of TV as my constant companion that I love, I sometimes think that it is the most devastating thing to ever happened in this world.
I pray a lot, but my son plows forward. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about yet ( I hope), but the amount of information he gets through the TV and internet is pretty scary.
As Toby Keith sings:
“I stand by my right to speak freely,
but I worry ’bout what kids learn from TV”.
“Worry” is not the right word for me. My son is scary smart, but also lost in a landslide of baloney. He attends one of the best public schools in the country, and his head is being stuffed with bullshit (I tried, but that’s really the only word to describe it).
I just hope I can plant the seeds of freedom in his head, because the schools just ain’t cutting it, and the teachers union is a nest of left wing baloney, as far as I am concerned. I have some friends who are teachers, and live on the “Connecticut Yankee” side of life. If they speak up, they are screwed.
Did you hear about the guy in NJ who got screwed for keeping a bible on his desk? I am not a bible freak by any means, but, gimme a fuckin’ break here!
Randi Weingarten? What a jerk she is, her only goal being to screw our children’s education to keep herself in power and take as much of your money as she possibly can. Even the thought of her caring anything about education is a monstrous joke. She is about BUCKS
Randi = $$$$$$$
How did we get here?
Well. if you have been arouned as long as I have, you can see that the previous generation – the hippie spawners (my parents, and probably a lot of your parents) – tried too hard to protect us from reality, and protect us from the misery that they knew in the depression.
SHIT! Didn’t work out all that good, did it? And I imply no evil motives, but my generation’s parents tried too hard to sheild their children from reality, and created a Frankenstein monster, wherein too many of us think that the world is run by overindulgent parents. And include me on that list (until I was whacked by reality!).
Spoiling a child is no favor to said child. For sure. And I know it as well or better than anyone.
I don’t care so much for myself, because, as Rush says, (sorta): “I have had more fun in my life than a human being should be allowed to have”.
But somewhere in our lives, we need to accept the role of being an adult. It can suck, but it has to happen to make any life become anywhere near complete.
It is a tough journey, but it looks to me like it will be even tougher for my son. With five hundred cable channels, and a thoroughly left wing teaching staff at his school, all I can hope to be is Johnny Appleseed.
Please. Please. Please.
Let my seeds grow. It is my astonishingly smart son’s only chance to ever understand what freedom really means. It just doesn’t exist anymore like it did when I grew up in the fifties and sixties. Our kids can’t even understand what “freedom” actually means. They have no clue.
When Fran Nan and Harry Reid are the Majority speakers, what is left of the America I grew up in?
Bummer, but from what I see, this country seems prepared to take a dive.
O!? McQuackQuack?
My God! How did we arrive here?
It scares the crap out of me because my son is only eight years old, and what the hell is he going to grow up believing that “freedom” is?
Licking Harry Reid’s … whatever.
I hope our future is not what Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid believe it is…
But it does scare me.
Comment by Topsecretk9 on 8/2 @ 11:52 pm #
#
Comment by cynn on 8/2 @ 7:27 pm #
Do any of you people even live in working class neighborhood? In the shadow of downtown Denver, middle class, 100+ year old homes, street parking. Chores and summer jobs are de rigeur. We can barely afford handymen, let alone general contractors and granite countertops. And I let my lawn die ’cause it was to f’in hot.
Ah YEAH. I do you dork. This section 8 / disability check rental left the neighborhood this afternoon, she left a line 20 feet deep of shit on the street for Goodwill to pick up, I guess(HOPE) including 6 BRAND NEW BIKES 6! When someone came along and asked if they were free she said sure – the neighbor asked her why she was giving away her bikes, including 3 children bikes she had just bought? She just didn’t want to deal with them and she’ll buy them new ones at Christmas.
Meanwhile, she trashed the place.
Comment by McGehee on 8/3 @ 7:33 am #
The more I see of “Section 8″ housing clients the more I wonder when Corporal Klinger got put in charge at HUD.
Comment by datadave on 8/3 @ 9:33 am #
efffing A! Does anybody wonder why Lost Dog lost his wife?
Get a grip dude, a g/f might help, but for you hard to find. (I don’t do the psycho-drug putdowns…but after you attacking SteveG on something I wrote and now believing lightweight normal people like Nancy and Harry (a relatively conservative Mormon Democrat btw) are a threat to your way of life…..is just soooo funny. Again, get a Grip! We’re just talking bullshit here mostly, not your life Being an estranged dad, I know isn’t easy, but then I have a son too and am spending the weekend w/ him if and when I can pry his macPro off of him…) later, ‘friend’
back to Darleen’s subject: One problem though with encouraging youngn’s to do manual labor is that their is a huge prejudice in the work place against those who work with their hands. If you go to college with a resume showing that you did tons of manual labor some esp. in the tech sector will put down that person. The kids know this. The Honor students want to have as much technological experience, such starting their own web company at 14 (like my son), being a white collar type as much as possible in order to avoid the stigma of being a grunt. And parent’s also know this. So there is a bias against ‘real work’, the hard stuff that gets you sweaty. Me, being a ‘hippy’ artsy carpenter (with low self esteem perhaps) missed this bias while working my way up from absolute bottom…but still having the advantage of a college degree, being white, and looking ‘normal’…now have a little compassion for those with a darker skin, (it is harder for a black man with a high school degree to find a job than a white man just out of prison according to that CNN show about black men in America… and I believe that, hearing small business owners such as my ex’s bro in law who owns a hardware store in midLong Island. He’ll hire just about any white person but not a black, too risky he says…n he’s the usual long lsland jewish Democrat with a good sense of humor, now if a liberal businessman won’t hire blacks…what’s that say about conservative ones? )
But the question I posed is: Does manual labor have a stigma? Does taking just any job ruin your resume for future better jobs? I suggest that might be a good reason for parents to steer their kids away from “hard work” and keep ‘em out of the workforce so that they get the best grades for the more ‘entitled’ jobs?
Comment by Darleen on 8/3 @ 10:02 am #
The kids know this. The Honor students want to have as much technological experience, such starting their own web company at 14 (like my son), being a white collar type as much as possible in order to avoid the stigma of being a grunt. And parent’s also know this. So there is a bias against ‘real work’, the hard stuff that gets you sweaty.
I call bullsh*t. What college is going to reject someone because they spent their summers as a plumbers/electricians apprentice? Or started their own landscaping business?
Certain manual labor has a stigma…. for adults. Most parents have admonished their kids to not be lazy in school least they end up a ditch digger. But I doubt anyone sneers at plumbers or morticians.
Comment by maggie katzen on 8/3 @ 10:55 am #
I don’t think so. Looking at the examples around me, no, manual labor hasn’t been a set back. (and we’re back to mowing… ) my dad, never let my sister or me mow the lawn, for one, he had a scary professional mower that outweighed us.
He was a superintendent on a golf course and had lots of high school and college kids work in the summer, (a few of my sister’s friends at one point) and I’m pretty sure they all went on to “entitled” jobs after college.
Comment by JD on 8/3 @ 11:08 am #
Do you just make up memes as you go along?
Comment by Challeron on 8/3 @ 11:26 am #
Dave, I wouldn’t be too sure about the “manual labor stigma” thing, especially as it applies to teaching the young’uns, largely because the only jobs that can’t be exported are the manual labor ones: Going back to Heinlein’s theory (mentioned in another thread) about specialization being for insects, anyone who — like myself — has what is quaintly called a “trade”, and therefore knows how to “use their hands”, is never going to be unemployed for long (I’m unemployed at the moment partly from choice, meaning I haven’t felt any particular urge to find another job just now: I’m a metal fabricator by trade, and a “practical” machine-tool programmer, meaning I can write G-code and M-code by hand and actually understand what the machine is supposed to do; yeah, I know, this thread isn’t All About Me, but bear with me here): I recall, back when “All The Manufacturing Jobs Are Leaving!”, and America was “becoming a service economy” (read in chillingly-sinister tones: “We’re all going to end up flipping burgers at McDonalds!!”), a trade school put up a TV ad showing a big mansion with a Maserati pulling into the driveway, with the voiceover, “This is the house of the man who owns the Maserati”, and then we saw a Corvette drive past, and the camera followed the Vette to the next mansion, where it pulled into the driveway, with the voiceover, “This is the house of the man who services the Maserati.” Most of the machine tools I work with are built overseas, and I just might take a job with one of the manufacturers of those machines — US Amada — as a Tech Support Specialist (like the Maserati mechanic), just because I have “hands-on experience” (I was considered by US Amada for a National Tech Support position over 20 years ago, and my Mad Skillz certainly haven’t faded).
In the coming years — no matter which way the American Economy, Big Corporations, or the US Dollar goes — the people who will always find work, will be the ones capable of doing work. I hardly need to tell you this; you’re working, and you’ll keep right on working, no matter how many Evil Corporations pack up and leave, no matter if the Welfare System collapses and ten million people suddenly become your (unskilled) competition — provided that the American Government does not become Socialist: The surest way to screw us all is to remove the incentive to work.
The second-surest way of preventing that is to keep Leftists out of power.
The surest way of preventing it is to give our kids the incentive to work.
And the best way to do that is to push away that “stigma of manual labor”, and teach the kidzes that Self-Reliance Ain’t Such A Bad Thing.
Who knows: Anyone who could do all those things that Heinlein listed might even be a good Parent themselves….
Comment by Mikey NTH on 8/3 @ 11:33 am #
FWIW – my brothers and I were expected to pick up our rooms and make the bed. If we wanted our laundry done we had to get it to the basket. We also cut the grass and raked, shoveled snow, took out the garbage, etc.
I had a paper route when I was in fourth grade – a weekly local paper, and it was rare to be given a ride. Rain, shine, snow I delivered and collected. When I was in seventh grade I had a daily route and the same conditions applied. I also cut grass and shoveled snow at a few houses on our block – one neighbor I did after college when I was substitute teaching, when they would go to Florida for the winter (they let me keep my car in their garage as payment – I was happy for that let me tell you).
Our parents trained us well – one Saturday in May I repainted the garage without being asked because (a) I knew it had to be repainted, and (b) it was a nice day, warm with no humidity and it was better doing it then and not waiting til July. It sure surprised dad when he came home and found I had already scraped it and was halfway done painting one side. Now when we visit mom and dad we set the table, do the dishes, put everything away, ask if they need anything done outside, etc.
Consider it survival training for a modern life.
Comment by Mikey NTH on 8/3 @ 11:41 am #
BTW – I am a lawyer, and at work I’ve repaired a date-stamper, a bookcase, a chair, and a desk. At other jobs I’ve also repaired office furniture and other things. Its fun, its satisfying, and there is a real feeling of accomplishment when something broken is repaired and returned to use.
I wonder how much money I’ve saved the state by doing that?
Comment by Mikey NTH on 8/3 @ 11:45 am #
#15 Bumperstickerist – my brothers and I pushed a MonkeyWards reel mower (non-power) and used rakes, brooms, hand edgers, clippers, and snow shovels. Dad didn’t get any power yard equipment until we all had moved out. Funny that, eh?
Comment by Challeron on 8/3 @ 11:45 am #
Btw: Locke still seems to be in business; as near as I can figure, though, the real magic of its “striping” seems to be the following roller (which was prolly the drive roller of the ones JD is fond of), so, if you can’t find a Locke at a reasonable price, look for a Simplicity; they speak of their following (non-drive) roller as giving good
headstripe….Comment by Mikey NTH on 8/3 @ 12:00 pm #
cynn – I grew up in a nice suburban neighborhood – Dearborn, west side. What I described was the norm for there, it was what was expected.
Also, first up in the morning fed the dog and let her out. And yes, we picked up after her outside, and brushed her. (Also washed her in the laundry tub every now and again – I think I did that the most – she just trembled when she was lifted up and placed in, but we had a little sprayer hose to put over the faucet and the water was warm. Ah, I still miss Cinder, she was such a sweetie.)
Comment by Mikey NTH on 8/3 @ 12:13 pm #
#52 Freedoms Truth – Yet years later he is going to look back with satisfaction and say “I did that, I helped dad build a wall.”
Comment by Mikey NTH on 8/3 @ 12:31 pm #
#56 – bic/dd:
Where I am, someone who can work with his or hands and make something or repair something isn’t looked down upon.
One Christmas I gave my secretary two candles. I bought two wine glasses, melted green and red wax, and turned them into candles. No one denigrated those gifts, and I certainly do not look down at her, she is a cracker-jack legal secretary who has – more than once – kept me from making a mistake.
I can fix things, and that isn’t looked down at, that is appreciated. At a law-clerking job when I was in law school I repaired a filing cabinet and got the micro-film reader/printer to work again. Trust me on this – someone who can do that is very appreciated. (At that job, after the bar exam, one of the attorneys said “I knew you were back – when I came in all the lights were on, everything was up and running, and the coffee was made.” I still get in first most mornings and get the coffee going and take the dishcloths home to be laundered.
Where I am from, that is appreciated.
Comment by Mikey NTH on 8/3 @ 12:54 pm #
As anyone can guess, I have been commenting as I have gone down the thread.
After high school, through college, and after when I was substitute teaching, I worked at Camp Dearborn. I have cleaned restrroms and showers, cleaned outhouses, cut grass with a flail-tractor, riding mower, push mower, weed whip; I have lifted 55 gallon drum garbage cans into a packer, used a litter stick, cold patched roads, thrown canvas, hung doors, built/repaired picnic tables, repaired paddle boats, rebuilt cabin frame tents, done basic electrical wiring, done basic plumbing, tiled, pruned trees, cleaned ditches with a shovel, poured concrete, salted roads from the back of a dumptruck – everything a public park and campground and youth camp needed down I have done it.
And that experience is a great asset to me. I know what needs to be done, what I can do, and what will need someone else to do. And as a lawye, I don’t feel my life was wasted because I did that. I made some things better than they were before I passed by.
It is fun to be an evil rethuglikkkan who has actually done drudge work; it freaks some people totally out when they say “You’ve never worked a day in your life!” and you respond “I’ve dug out ditches and replaced sewer grates and worked on a garbage truck. And you?”
Comment by shivas irons on 8/3 @ 1:53 pm #
Were you cruising through San Clemente? My boy Ian was earning his $5 per week allowance by doing same… and the push mower actually something he can talk his friends into helping him “play with” as it’s so “fun”.
Long live Tom Sawyer!!
Comment by banned in colorado on 8/3 @ 4:39 pm #
Meme?
Our esteemed host’s protector, JD, were you directing this question to me? Do you just make up memes as you go along?
Surely, you don’t think such a stupid woodhead as I (as you fellows proclaim) would use a high-falutin word like meme would you? (Oh, I denounced myself, in PW fashion.) No, really, I vaguely knew the word but barely, so looked it up. Meeeme pronounced like that? eh? I thought I was staying on topic that Darleen proposed.
darleen’s right that no selfrespecting college would turn down a hardworking person that did manual work. It’s not the educators I worry about, it’s the privileged guys who usually are into Finance and Business and hold the keys to higher paying jobs that I was talking about.
Usually teachers have been great clients. Except for special ed ones….don’t know why but they can be a pain. So I don’t diss teachers here. Social workers are to be avoided almost always and anyone in the headgame fields: psychologists, ’shrinks’…..yowl, watch out!
Ok, Massive generalizations. But other contractors confirmed their biases with me too.
Alright, back on track. No memes here. I love it that you guys are not dismissive of the blue collar types or ‘tradesmen-women’ but it’s still not a field I’d send my kid into. No way. Like I said before, I like the work, but it’s a pretty conservative field as my mom said. I shoulda listened. It’s just too tied to financial ups and downs and very rednecky despite that influx of hippy artisans that came in the 70s and early 80s…those of us who read Fine Homebuilding and Fine Woodworking inside and out as Reagan’s revolution wouldn’t let “us” into govt. jobs like I was trained for. Or thought I was trained for. Or more likely we disdained working for a govt. so reactionary. (oh, well, but that DOD money and retirement woulda been nice about now…..)
Mikey, my g/f’s son did all that sort of work from age 15 and now he’s flying through law school (at Pace). Seemed that the work ethic didn’t hurt him but the best thing he did was get on the debate team in college. Massive good training for law. But he’s got a champaign appetite after hanging with the rich kids in college. And a hundred K loan to pay off.
later, good thread, Darleen. Don’t be so hardhearted on those poor illegals>. How about arresting the employers who knowingly hire them to keep the US worker poorer?
Comment by B Moe on 8/3 @ 4:43 pm #
Reagan’s revolution wouldn’t let “us†into govt. jobs like I was trained for. Or thought I was trained for. Or more likely we disdained working for a govt. so reactionary.
So when is your Pepsi can coming out, dave?
Comment by banned in colorado on 8/3 @ 5:24 pm #
hmmm, silly joke ’cause I don’t get it. You mean the retirement funds in the pepsi can under the rock in the backyard?
or the string on the can messaging system?
or the Rethug Pepsi can your waterboarding technicians would’ve like to have stuck up my arse? (similar to what our proxies did for the US or for the CIA in Op. Condor..)
try to give us a Meme? eh? Oh, Pepsi w/ Jameson whiskey? (Darleen’s wrong about the alleged drinking of course, wrong as usual..)
Coke-man actually.
Comment by The Monster on 8/3 @ 9:00 pm #
Not a “young boy” at that age. For millenia, thirteen-year old males have stood before the congregation and declared “Today I am a man.” Until just a few generations ago, in most countries he would have been considered a man outside the synagogue as well.
Somehow we have “progressed” to the point where, rather than a young man working in an environment where he is just another productive adult, (or at least an apprentice quickly becoming productive, learning his trade from a master thereof), instead we shove him into a huge warehouse full of thousands within a few years of his age, with only a handful of adults, and by a combination of laws, insurance premiums, and parental attitudes, prevent him from seeing any connection between his productivity and his status as an Almighty Consumer, which the media has spent years impressing upon him.
It’s no wonder that so many “young children” think that every perceived need is owed to them.
Comment by Pablo on 8/3 @ 9:14 pm #
I like it, dave. And thanks for finally saying something coherent. Finally, your work here is done.
Comment by McGehee on 8/3 @ 9:41 pm #
I gotta mov to Colorado. This thread would make a lot more sense with the regulars responding to comments I can’t see, than it does now.
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[...] read this over at Protein Wisdom: There’s hope [Darleen Click] Sitting at the signal at the top of the hill, I glance up at the first home just up the sidestreet, [...]
Comment by Blitz on 8/4 @ 5:54 pm #
Mikey NTH… Thank you sir. I no longer feel like I don’t belong here.
Never went to college, because DAD insisted I run his landscaping business. I was very good at it, and for years it flourished until dad started drinkin way too much, we fought and I took a job as a pump jockey.
Long story short? I now own the franchise and another shop where we do anything from oil changes to full engine/chassis/body conversions. Pretty sure I’m selling Shell, but my idiot brother is in charge of that now, and well…he was raised by my stepmother…a “lawnmowers are dangerous” type and I don’t want him in MY shop, so I’ve held off.
You’re so right Mike… People who can? DO. Hope I’ve said this right, no formal education here.